Pink is Only a Colour

There is a little girl in pink.
She is blonde with blue eyes.
She has a friendly, open look.

She is hurt by a trusted adult (they were all trusted adults) in ways a child should not know.

I carry that as an ache in my hips.

It's an ugly, rusty machine which sings pretty songs in the voice of a playmate.
The song then turns to screams only the child in pink can hear.

The machine is blue and grey.
It's bigger than the child.

It is the colour of faded clothes. Like men. In work clothes.

The child, caught in the machine, is silent with fear.
For herself, for her friend.

I would see this machine destroyed. Smashed to bits. But it has long since rusted away.

Now, the child, long grown, feels an ache in her hips, in her heart.


I wrote that in March of 2008. I found it recently. I did not remember writing it or the journal entries or tarot readings that went with it. I have not edited it. I am stunned by the power of my own ability to repress that which I cannot look at. Not just put away for later. No. Totally forgotten.

That is the answer to the qestion, *Can't you just take a break from this for a while?* No, not yet. I am afraid I will take a break and totally repress it again. Sometimes I know that the memories I have are mine to keep now. And sometimes I'm not sure they are *set* yet.

so much for decisions

My therapist was not having the *I can't go to my home group* thing. Nope. She said I was just trying to avoid a difficult situation and avoid things that trigger me. While that makes a lot of sense it also means that I won't be healing from the things I'm avoiding. Leaning into my triggers and exploring why they trigger me. And picking up the pieces of a relationship that was broken. See, the woman who was so angry and screaming at me is a trusted friend. No, really. She is one of the very few people who can not only listen to what I have to say about ANYTHING but has some abuse in her own past as well. Which made everything worse. threatened and triggered by a trusted friend. So my homework was to come up with an *I* statement to start the conversation off and talk to my friend about what happened. Easy? Oh no. I had a full blown panick attack in my therapist's office just telling her about it. Couldn't breathe. Panicking about not being able to breathe. Still feeling the physical effects of that. So, since I was not off the hook about going to my home group but was given an assignment and wished luck, off I went. And my anxiety didn't go down any. No, it was physical pain. But my friend sat next to me so I mentioned that I needed to talk to her. Then, of course, I started crying. I can't do much without crying these days. But I got to talk and she talked and she actually understood what had happened even if she didn't know the specifics. Peace reigns again at my home group...at least my internal peace. It IS one of the few places where I can be okay or not okay and people ask me if I AM okay if I look like things are not good. Which is often. Since I go there a few hours after therapy. Maybe what I need to do is get some dinner after therapy and before the meeting. Ya know...HALT (Don't get too Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired)
So, so much for rationalising my attempt at running away.

Where I Am

I can't answer that question really succinctly. But I can take stock. I am in a place of lots of doing but it's kind of a place of lull too. I'm working through a lot but the flashbacks have taken a break. (Yay! Yes, say yay.) They are emotionally top heavy and pull me down into a spiral of emotion that is very intense and difficult. The emotions that come after a flashback are dark and scary. I must process all the emotions that happened at the time of the abuse that were not safe to have at the moment. So, I CAN NOT DEAL WITH CURRENT EMOTIONS in any reasonable way while that is going on. A splinter is worse than a broken bone when I am processing the emotions from a flashback. Yeah, it's bad. And it's difficult and it's draining. I am learning, slowly, to back off from non essential things while I do that. But, I must work and I think that's a good thing. I have to keep my hand on reality in some way. That is how I do it.

I have made some decisions after an unpleasant experience at my home group's last group conscience meeting. Things got out of hand and I felt threatened by another woman and her anger. I decided pretty quickly that I was not going to group conscience meetings for the foreseeable future. But now I think that I will not go to the meeting at all for a while. This meeting takes place on Friday night at 6 which is shortly after therapy. I think that I am too raw and vulnerable to deal with this particular meeting at that time right now. I need to go home and coddle myself after therapy. Yep. I'm pretty sure that's what I'm going to do.